


blue capsules and red pills

by sventheolsen



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cat Grant in a leopard print skirt, Chemistry, Drug Use, Drug-Induced Sex, F/F, F/M, Hatred, MMA fighter, Mutual Pining, stupid teenage Kara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7519111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sventheolsen/pseuds/sventheolsen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara is National City’s greatest pride as the Cape wearing, tights-donning Supergirl, the world’s first mixed MMA fighter champion. Kara bows down to no one save the RedK pills that inject her with superhuman strength. Cat Grant, resident rookie reporter and vixen extraordinaire, seems to be the exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue capsules and red pills

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark, really dark Supergirl, sticking to the original DC characterisation of Cat Grant (and my annoyance with it) and it mirrors more of the events of the actual first meeting between Cat and Supergirl. Trigger warning: substance abuse, sexual assault.
> 
> Also would like to note that Supergirl’s experiences with substance abuse comes from my personal experience, so I would appreciate it if no judgement arises. Peace and love.

The guilt trip feels the absolute worst. 

It occurs roughly twenty three hours after the first injection, which she had to pierce through her steely skin. The physical hit, the feeling like her mind is soaring up and down in the clouds without lifting her feet, makes her curl her fingers into a fist. 

She does it first when she’s seventeen and in the middle of a seedy Midwest town, not too far from her adopted family. The injection glows red in the dark, which already sets off several alarm bells in Sunny Danvers’ mind, but she’s just one drunk hiccup away from passing out drunk, and she desperately needs to get away from Winn’s bearded jaw and needy lips. 

The man was pretty shady, and Kara wouldn’t have let him through to her backyard unless she knew she could flip him and knee his crotch in miliseconds. Jeremiah Danvers was pronounced dead or missing (and dead) six hours earlier, and Kara had never so eagerly wanted to crawl out of her skin and disappear into some starry substance. 

The RedK (what a stupidly obvious name, she thinks hazily) was found on some DarkNet website, and she blocked the judgemental voice of her sister, who was conspicuously absent anyways. 

Oh, but after that. She was giggling into Winn’s shoulder and trying to shimmy away from his fingers crawling to her ass, until a sudden surge, better than an orgasm, better than any cheap five-dollar cigarettes she tried, comes up her spine and down her fingers. 

The world shifts into focus, and the pain, roaring and screaming into her ear tunnels, stops suddenly. She hears another scream of pain, though, not coming from her throat, and she leaps up.

“What the hell?” 

Winn’s yelp grounds her back from the surge of andrenaline, heart palpitating a bit too fast to be a human being. She jumped fifty feet into the air. 

Her lips curled. That was awesome. 

-

Reports would come in three hours later, of a teenage girl tearing apart the hood of a car with some unnamed weapon because no one was that strong, and saving the lives of a single mother and her infant daughter. 

“She was like a fucking bear, I swear!” Exclaimed one of the eye-witnesses on KTV, a slurry-voiced frat boy on summer vacation. “Ripped a real one off the Honda, man, like fucking Superman!” Hysterical, cannabis-induced laughter ensued.

“She saved me,” sobbed the victim in ECU three days later, a large gash on her left temple secured tightly. “Thank you for saving my child.” 

The final testimony came from a pale-faced neighbor of the teenage wonder-girl, who smiled with a petrified expression on his face. “Uh,” He cleared his throat. “She practices mixed martial arts- a really, really good friend of mine.” 

And that was how Winn Schott Jr singlehandedly launched the career of Supergirl.   
-

“Haven’t we suffered enough,” Eliza yells, the shattering of several plates echoing the high pitch. Her eyes red and watery, she grasps her torso tightly. 

Kara closed her eyes, lifting an ice bag to her left eyebrow. That’s going to leave a scar, she thinks resignedly. Like she said, the guilt trip was the worst. Being a foster daughter meant she spent most of her childhood trying too hard, to be the quiet, accepting youngest child, to accept every judgemental stare and not-so-quiet whisper with a bright, self-effacing smile. 

She does what Alex told her to do all those years ago, and controls her breath with three, short inhales. She straightens her back and does what she always did best in the Danvers family: be the strong one.

As Eliza crumbles into her almost-too-tight grip, she lets one or two tears leak. 

“I miss him too, Mom.” She whispers. Alex finds them, shattered plates and hugging tightly, seven hours later as she trudges into the hall. 

-

“You need, like, a cover. An alter-ego.” Alex states, and Kara shifts uncomfortably underneath the piercing emerald gaze. 

“What?” Kara replies tiredly, the adrenaline from the past three days finally slipping. “No, I’m just- Winn said some stupid things, doesn’t mean I become Sasha Fierce.”

A derisive snort. “No, you can’t beat Queen Bey. I’m saying,” Alex shoves her slumped frame, currently inhaling several paneer tikkis. “You obviously saved some lives, even though you were really messed up doing it.” 

Kara finally looks up from her plate of herbed Indian food, levelling her with an unimpressed stare. “I was drunk,” She emphasizes, accepting the irresponsible choices she had made. “I hardly think playing Superman without any rational thinking capcity is a good idea?”

“Why not? The tights can be sexy.” A male voice, teasingly responds from behind them. Alex grins widely in response, waving two fingers. “Hey, Supergirl’s Number 1 Fan,” she teases, wiggling her eyebrows at Winn and Kara. 

“I will kill you,” Kara replies in response, murderously pointing her plastic spork at her best friend. “As soon as I finish this butter chicken,” she concludes. 

Winn and Alex glance at each other. “While you’re stuffing your face with takeout and drowning Friends reruns,” Winn pointedly stares at the TV screen, the only source of light in the dark room. “I have a way to make it up for you.”

Kara tilts her chin up. 

“Kara, how do you feel like a gig in National City?”   
-

The first fight sent the West Coast baying for blood. 

The scenes of Supergirl locking Justice Leak between her powerful legs in three minutes flat sent many men, young and old alike, with happy, violent fantasies that night.

James Olsen, Superman’s right hand man and ‘special friend’, took the lucky shot, skyrocketing Tribune sales and securing a left-wing, skyline office.

Fans could hardly expect a barely legal, blonde cheerleader defeating the MMA darling of Fort Rozz Inc., and immediately adopted her as their own. 

“Supergirl,” the sharp-tongued Cat Grant named her, the only Tribune reporter with the foresight to witness the fight in person. “The heroine the City doesn’t need.” 

\--   
“MMA is a distinctly primal sport, reminding one of Roman style lion-and-gladiator battles. Except this time, the Fort Rozz-linked beast Leak was tamed by a tween in a barely legal skirt. This correspondent does not know what’s more embarrassing, the broken spleen suffered by Justice or the blundering, doe-eyed victory of National City’s Supergirl.”

Alex sets the Tribune copy down, mouth popping into an O of understanding. “I think she has a crush on you,” She teased. 

Kara growled. “I hate her. Isn’t this- like, sexist?” She whined, slicing her third sticky bun. “Pitting women against women. And my skirt wasn’t that short!” 

A barely disguised cough from her manager indicates otherwise. “I think we need to get you a better outfit.” Winn looks at her appraisingly, and Kara tries not to flush under his stare. “It did leave little to the imagination, and I think only your anaconda choke should’ve been clear.” 

“I need to get back to work,” Alex pointedly informs her, gathering her latte to-go, swooping over her forehead for a quick press of lips. 

“Enjoy your secret-government-job. Don’t get kidnapped by aliens,” she joked, half a sticky bun already into her mouth. 

“Yak it up,” she tossed, the leather-pant figure already vanishing into the street. 

She sighs and turns to her childhood friend. “Soo, Kevlar? Breathable, stretchable, I think it’s legal as per UFC regulations 2010.” He gushes, fingers already sketching a costume onto a tablet he whips up.

\-   
She heads to her favorite bar, Tantric, after four gruelling hours at her gym. Her obliques are happily twinging from soreness and her cheeks hurt from the mouth guard. 

She lazily slips into a tank top and tight jeans, her hair still smelling like drugstore shampoo. She puffs it into something vaguely presentable, and adds a little eyeliner.   
Kara loves the anonymity of the night, she embraces the darker part of herself that isn’t a fighter or a sister, just her darkest impulses. 

She sidles to the bar top, ignoring the blatantly appraising stares upon her back. She hates this part of being Supergirl, being suddenly stopped in the street, and covering up panic attacks and slapping a smile on her face for photos. 

“Usual, Hank.” She greets him with a warm smile reserved for few. The stoic bartender gives the barest hint of a smile in response, heading to the back.

She tapped her fingers and began chewing the left inside of her lip. God, she hated how she got like this, the RedK now barely in her bloodstream, feeling the weakness of being a human. 

“You don’t have yellow teeth, that’s one tell, at least.” A sultry voice comes from behind, and Kara jumps, hating always to be snuck upon. 

“What?” she snaps, her niceties for strangers vanishing. Her anger dies on her throat as she’s met with the most sinful looking leopard-printed skirt, hugging the lady’s behind perfectly. She rakes her eyes up to an equally tightly fitted shirt, leaving little to the imagination about the other woman’s cleavage. She barked out a laugh. God, she was getting the hots for a cougar. 

“Cat Grant, your maker and advocate.” She informs slyly, sitting primly next to her. Irritation flared up her chest immediately. 

“Ah, fuck you very much too,” She replies angrily. The drink she desperately desired finally arrives, and she takes it down in one gulp. The searing burn, like acid being thrown into her aesophagus, makes her cough and sputter.

Unruffled, the other woman peers over to the drink. “I didn’t know meth came in liquid, drinkable forms either.” She murmured, her eyes turning sharp and calculating.

This woman insults her on print media, and then accuses her of being a crack addict. Kara sighed, suddenly, the RedK constricting her veins and pinging happy dopamine receptors in her brain. 

“It’s not meth,” She replies, surprised by the calmness in her voice. “It’s more of… hot chocolate. Family recipe.” Really red looking hot chocolate. 

The excuse was so weak that Cat cocked an eyebrow, challenging. “Ah,” she acquiesces, “It’s not meth.” She accepts, withdrawing. 

Kara could twist her arm in the wrong direction any time, she thinks morbidly. And then the shock, of traversing beyond her own moral boundaries, shock her. This woman was just a tabloid-hound, a complete stranger.

Cat, noticing the slight frown and rigid pose, realizes her exclusive scoop with Supergirl would be ending fast. She leans back against the bar. “Come with me,” she rises authoritatively. Kara smirks at the five foot tall woman. 

She daringly grabs the hand of the other girl, pulling her into the dance floor. “Ok, cougar.” Kara replied mischeviously.

Within two minutes, the RedK and the filthy-sounding rap music makes Kara feel- superhuman, almost, and she is languidly grinding her thigh against the older woman.   
The gasp sends more happy, RedK pings into her brain and she sinks her teeth into the woman’s neck.

She is left blinking when the older woman, who was pleasantly writhing underneath her, pulls away. “Yes- I mean, no.” She says breathlessly and disappears from her red-tinged vision in three seconds. 

Well. That was strange. Kara would have been working her fingers into the older woman and clasping a mouth over her screams within twenty minutes. 

Shaking her head, she lets her hips sway to the brash beats in the club, losing herself in a haze. 

-

Except, nothing goes to Kara’s plans again, that night. She hears the screams outside, except it doesn’t come from any feet planted on the ground.

She hears the abject fear of death coming from a twelve-ton metal aeroplane, skidding into impending death.

The impulse is as powerful to her as the need to pummel someone into bits, or to fuck someone into a babbling mess - the urge to save, save these helpless humans oh god Alex. 

The horrifying reality makes her spring her calves upwards, breaking a few storey’s worth of cement and plaster, and she keeps swivelling her legs until she’s gliding, - no, flying into the air, ripping through several atmospheric layers until her fingers sink into searingly hot steel. 

She pushes with all the MMA-induced strength she has, pulls that plane into an arm drag and with a final oof the gargantuan steelbox careens into water.

Except, fuck, now she’s drowning and this isn’t how National City’s favorite UFC fighter is defeated and - 

She pushes herself up, up damnit, and she is so, so relieved to be dripping wet and cold and staring at the petrified eyes of her sister, alive and safe. 

And that’s how Kara Danvers launches the second career of Supergirl.

-  
Lucy Lane is a five-feet, fatigue wearing, mascara-ed being who tries her best to intimidate Kara. 

Unaffected, she picks the lint off her Kevlar-backed blouse. “I’m National City’s youngest fighter with a nineteen fight streak, Major Lane. Hardly a threat to national security.”

Her arrogance usually comes in leaps and bounds when she gets a hit, but right now it masks the fear in her voice. 

“Cut the bravado, Supergirl,” the contempt drips off the military woman’s voice. “We know you have unusual abilities, and triggered the largest oil spill in National Bay Harbour history.”

“I saved two hundred lives!” 

“Good intentions, but you’ve caused a lot of trouble.” Lucy replies firmly. “We’re going to transfer you to a facility. Because you are an American citizen, we have recieved permission from next-of-kin.”

“You’re sending me to an internment camp?” Lucy’s lip curled at the sight of reddening eyes. 

“No, just an observation,” she looked over to two soldiers, who handcuffed her as she ground her teeth and accepted.

Do what they say, Alex had whispered to her, when the suits arrived into her apartment in the middle of preparing for a big match with Reactron. I’ll get you out. 

\--

In Supergirl’s absence, Cat Grant is surprisingly her biggest advocate. 

“The City’s Cheerleading Superhero”, boldly announces one headline. Reasons are provided as to her absence, ranging from rest and a joking speculation that she had been drafted by the United States army. 

Alex locks her jaw at the listicle, but she feels a flutter of relief. Kara was going to come home in two days, a tense phone call informed her. She did everything, from power of attorney to calling up human rights watchdogs, to ensure Kara’s body or mental state would not be violated in those three days. 

“I’m terrible,” Kara had replied with her trademark honesty, voice turning weak. “I miss the sun… and hot chocolate,” Alex understood the double meaning in her words.

The day, two years ago, Alex found out about her sister’s substance addiction, she cried and threw her toaster and refused to look at her for two weeks. But when she saved hundreds of lives again, because of some strange superabilites that drug gave her, and she started the Jeremiah Danvers Foundation for at-risk inner city youth to attend MMA classes for free, Alex reckoned only her sister’s pure heart would turn that addiction into something good. 

It didn’t stop the constant worrying though, that one day a line would be crossed and her sister would do something she would irrevocably regret. 

She sighed and turned to her absolute last resort. She dialed the extension, dread creeping with every expectant beep.

“Hello, Ms. Grant?” A pregnant pause. “I have a scoop for you.”

-

Turns out, even the Pentagon could not withstand the white-hot scrutiny of the National City media machine. Several damning reports of Supergirl’s inhumane treatment are released via a whistleblower, in a three-day relentless offensive by the Tribune. International media picks up, and hundreds of think pieces are released on the US’ double standards on torture and human rights until the President caves. 

Supergirl is released, looking noticeably emaciated but relieved. “Thank you, Cat Grant,” she responds hollowly at a press conference thirty minutes into her liberation. “You saved my life.” 

The fighter-savior extraordinaire goes into hiding, and the Media Machine shows an unexpected note of compassion - they let her. All news outlets, including the Tribune and the newly launched social media magnate CatCo international, are notably quiet about the city’s greatest pride.

And so the city releases a relieved roar, bloodthirsty and jubilant, as Supergirl repeats her Double Leg Takedown on the Red Tornado.

-

“James Olsen asked me out on a date,” is not the first sentence Alex expects to hear, five am in the morning. She rubs a tired palm on her face, relieved that Kara hadn’t overdosed or done something equally terrifying. 

“He just came up to me at Noonans, and said he liked sticky buns - he likes sticky buns!” Kara is unintelligible when she is excited, a childlike wonder entering her voice at the strangest of things. Alex rolled her eyes. 

“Alright, and you said yes, didn’t you,” she indulged her sister, knowing that her non-existent love life was an emergency. 

“Y-yes. Yes, and I was looking at his arms and he told me he’d love to see me fly sometime-”

“Is that a new euphemism?” Alex cut in, her sarcasm returning with her wakefulness.

“No, like actually,- on RedK flying, and-” Alex sits up in her bed.

“Kara, tell me he doesn’t know you’re on RedK.” She deflates and thanks whatever alien civilisation that created this planet as Kara sputters out the negative. 

“Alright, just remember to not fuck him on the first date. He’s classy,” Alex reminds her, eyes already slipping closed.

“He’s classy? Yes, kinda, in a non-fuckboy kind of way, Alex I don’t know how to handle actual men-”

The phone is clicked off before she takes two exhales.


End file.
